A Pilgrimage to Remember

Tens of millions of people were forcibly taken from their homes in Africa in the 17th
and 18th centuries. Those who survived the arduous "middle passage" across the
Atlantic formed the backbone of the New World's economyand their enslavement stands
as our nation's original sin that continues to reverberate even today, in the view of the
organizers of a yearlong procession of remembrance and atonement.

More than 100 walkers set out from western Massachusetts this spring as part of the
"Interfaith Pilgrimage of the Middle Passage." The pilgrimage retraces in
reverse the steps of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, traveling about 15 miles a day down
the Eastern Seaboard, across the deep South, and eventually across the ocean and then down
the African coast to Cape Town, South Africa. Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa
called the journey "a remarkable opportunity to confront the reality of the horrors
of slavery" and to examine "our attitudes and prejudices in the present
day."

Along the way, marchers are participating in public events intended to "change the
hearts of people who either directly or indirectly have benefited from, or been afflicted
by, the 'peculiar institution' of slavery," according to Rev. Edward Rodman, Canon
Minister of the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts. For instance, as the walkers passed
through Washington, D.C., in mid-July, they joined local supporters in a Day of
Remembrance on the National Mallthe largest slave auction site in the
countryand vigiled at the World Bank and IMF buildings in support of the Jubilee
2000 call for cancellation of the debt of African nations.

The following day the marchers walked through Arlington National Cemetery in a
"celebration of disarmament," a response to youth gang members who have called
truces and laid down their arms. "The pilgrims will be praying that the United States
no longer trade in arms, instruments of enslavement and destruction," organizers
said.

The pilgrimage was initiated by the Buddhist order Nipponzan Myohoji to offer prayers
for those who have suffered under slavery and its legacy, and to "transform the
thinking that spawned racism, namely the appetite for material power and luxury in Western
nations." This materially based thinking, organizers said, continues today in
domestic and international policies that relegate millionsmainly people of
colorto poverty.

Rev. Marjani Dele, director of Into Afrika Festival Inc. and co-coordinator of the
Washington, D.C. events, stressed the difficulty of getting people"even
activists"to honestly confront issues of racial justice. "The pilgrimage
is planting spiritual seeds," Dele told Sojourners, "that eventually will
manifest themselves in the political arena, in the education arena, in the total public
psyche."